I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.

In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?

Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.

A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by their

own light and that light is to be recognised by others. The long history of heroism with me,

Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Krista Young and this is a podcast from the Desert

Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in the year 2000, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Music My castaway this week is a writer and broadcaster. He was born in Sydney, Australia,

whereas the son of a widowed mother, he learned to joke his way out of trouble and into favour, ending up as a leading East Thete at the City's University.

At the age of 21, he turned his back on his native country and left for London.

And after a messy interval in Tuffnal Park, went to Cambridge, where he became president of footlights.

A successful decade as a critic and journalist followed before he moved into television

as a studio host and documentary raconteur.

Self-deprecation is his stock in trade.

He uses it not just on screen but in the many books he's written too.

It's a weapon to hide his fears.

I spend a lot of time laughing and trying

to make other people laugh, he says, but melancholy is at the basis of it. He is Clive James.

So Clive, life on a desert island would be melancholy at full throttle, would it?

I try to make it different, but that underlying sadness you've got to watch out for, it could be a boast, you know.

The clown is always saying that he's Hamlet underneath.

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